CHAP. well as ambassadors and statesmen, whose influence upon the politics of Europe was scarcely less than that of A.D. 1519. princes. But though they were courted and patronised by the potentates of Europe, their reform was refused. Reform of 6 The destinies of Christendom, by a remarkable concurrence of circumstances, were thrown very much into the hands of the young Emperor Charles V.; and, unfortunately for Christendom, Charles V. turned out to be the opposite of the Christian Prince' which Erasmus had done his best to induce him to become. Leo X. also had bitterly disappointed the hopes of Erasmus. When the time for final decision came, in the Diet of Worms the Emperor and the Pope were found banded together in the determination to refuse reform. In the meantime the leadership of the Reform movement had passed into other and sterner hands. Luther, concentrating his energies upon a narrower point, had already, in making his attack upon the abuse of Indulgences, raised a definite quarrel with the Pope. Within fifteen months of the death of Colet, he had astonished Europe by defiantly burning the Bull issued against him from Rome. And summoned by the Emperor to Worms, to answer for his life, he still more startled the world by boldly demanding, in the name of the German nation from the Emperor and Princes, that Germany should throw off the Papal yoke from her neck. For this was practically what Luther did at Worms.1 1 Luther in his famous speech at the Diet, after alluding to his doctrinal and devotional works, and offering to retract whatever in them was contrary to Scripture, emphati cally refused to retract what he had written against the Papacy, on the ground that were he to do so, it would be 'like throwing both doors 'and windows right open' to Rome CHAP. XVI. Luther's at the Diet of Worms. The Emperor and Princes had to make up their minds, whether they would side with the Pope or with the nation, and they decided to side with the Pope. A.D. 1519. They thought they were siding with the stronger party, battle-cry but they were grievously mistaken. Their defiance of Luther was engrossed on parchment. Luther's defiance of them, and assertion of the rights of conscience against Pope and Emperor, rang through the ages. It stands out even now as a watershed in history dividing the old era from the new. The re fusal of by a period tion. In the history of the next three centuries, it is impossible not to trace the onward swell, as it were, Reform of a great revolutionary wave, which, commencing with followed the Peasant War and the Sack of Rome, swept on of Revoluthrough the Revolt of the Netherlands, the Thirty Years' War, the Puritan Revolution in England, and the foundation of the great American Republic, until it culminated and broke in the French Revolution. It is impossible not to see, in the whole course of the events of this remarkable period, an onward movement as irresistible and certain in its ultimate progress as that of the great geological changes which have passed over the physical world. It is in vain to speculate upon what might have been the result of the concession of broad measures of reform whilst yet there was time; but in view of the bloodshed and misery, which, humanly speaking, might have been spared, who can fail to be impressed to the injury of the German nation. | point:-'Good God, what a great 'cloak of wickedness and tyranny CHAP. A.D. 1519. with the terrible responsibility, in the eye of History, XVI. resting upon those by whom, in the sixteenth century, the reform was refused? They were utterly powerless, indeed, to stop the ultimate flow of the tide, but they had the terrible power to turn, what might otherwise have been a steady and peaceful stream, into a turbulent and devastating flood. They had the terrible power, and they used it, of involving their own and ten succeeding generations in the turmoils of revolution. APPENDIX A EXTRACTS FROM MS. Gg. 4, 26, IN THE CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY, TRANSLATIONS OF WHICH ARE GIVEN AT PAGES 17-19 OF THIS WORK. Fol. 4 b. Quapropter concludit Paulus justificatos ex fide, et soli deo confidentes per Jesum reconciliatos esse deo, ' restitutosque ad gratiam; ut apud deum stent et maneant ipsi filii dei, et filiorum dei certam gloriam expectent. Pro qua adipiscenda interim ferenda sunt omnia patienter: ut 'firmitas spei declaretur. Quæ quidem non falletur. Siqui'dem ex dei amore et gratia erga nos ingenti reconciliati sumus, alioquin ejus filius pro nobis etiam impiis et con'trariis deo non interiisset. Quod si alienatos a se dilexit, quanto magis reconciliatos et diligit et dilectos conservabit. Quamobrem firma et stabili spe ac letitia esse debemus, 'confidereque deo indubitanter per Jesum Cristum ; per 6 quem unum hominem est ad deum reconciliatio. Nam ab ' illo ipso primo homine, et diffidentia, impietateque, et scelere ejusdem, totum humanum genus disperiit. 6 f. 5b. Sed hic notandum est, quod hec gracia nichil est aliud, quam dei amor erga homines; eos videlicet, quos 'vult amare, amandoque inspirare spiritu suo sancto, qui ipse 'est amor, et dei amor, qui (ut apud Joannem evangelistam 'ait salvator) ubi vult spirat. Amati autem et inspirati a 'deo vocati sunt, ut, accepto amore, amantem deum redament et eundem amorem desiderent et expectent. Hec exspectacio et spes, ex amore est. Amor vero noster est, quia ille nos amat, non (ut scribit Joannes in secunda ' epistola) quasi nos prius dilexerimus deum: sed quia ipse 'prior dilexit nos, eciam nullo amore dignos, siquidem im'pios et iniquos, jure ad sempiternum interitum destinatos. Sed quosdam, quos ille novit et voluit, deus dilexit, dili'gendo vocavit, vocando justificavit, justificando magnificavit. Hec in deo graciosa dileccio et caritas erga homines, ipsa 'vocacio et justificacio et magnificacio est : nec quicquid ' aliud tot verbis dicimus quam unum quiddam, scilicet 6 amorem dei erga homines eos quos vult amare. Item cum ' homines gracia attractos, vocatos, justificatos, et magnifi'catos dicimus, nichil significamus aliud, quam homines 'amantem deum redamare. f. 18. . . . aperte videas providente et dirigente deo res • duci, atque ut ille velit in humanis fieri; non ex vi quidem aliqua illata, quum nichil est remotius a vi quam divina 'actio: sed cum hominis natura voluntate et arbitrio, divina ' providentia et voluntate latenter et suaviter et quasi natu'raliter comitante, atque una et simul cum eo incedente tam 'mirabiliter, ut et quicquid velis egerisque agnoscatur a deo, 'et quod ille agnoverit statuitque fore simul id necessario fiat. ff. 79, 80. Hominis anima constat intellectu et voluntate. 'Intellectu sapimus. Voluntate possumus. Intellectus sa'pientia, fides est. Voluntatis potentia, charitas. Christus ' autem dei virtus, i.e. potentia, est, et dei sapientia. Per 'christum illuminantur mentes ad fidem: qui illuminat 6 omnem hominem venientem in hunc mundum, et dat 'potestatem filios dei fieri, iis qui credunt in nomine ejus. 'Per christum etiam incenduntur voluntates in charitatem: ' ut deum, homines, et proximum ament : in quibus est com'pletio legis. A deo ergo solo per christum et sapimus et ⚫ possumus; eo quod in christo sumus. Homines autem ex 'se intellectum habent cæcum, et voluntatem depravatam in tenebrisque ambulant et nesciunt quid faciunt. . . . 'Christus autem (ut modo dixi) dei virtus, et dei sapientia • est. Qui sunt calidis radiis illius divinitatis acciti ut illi in 'societate adhereant, hii quidem sunt tercii [1. Jews; 2. Gentiles; 3. Christians], illi quos Paulus vocatos et electos ' in illam gloriam, appellat: quorum mentes presentia divini'tatis illustrantur; voluntates corriguntur; qui fide cernunt 'clare sapientiam christi, et amore ejusdem potentiam fortiter 'apprehendunt.' |